Where were you on September 11th?

[TJones]

My wife came and got me out of bed, telling me that a plane had just crashed into the WTC. I got out and in front of the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. I told my wife that this is no accident, we looked at each other, and watched the TV for awhile, then heard about the plane crash at the Pentagon then the one in Penn. I threw some clothes on, and told my wife I was going to the gun store and to lock the door behind me. I grabbed my Desert Eagle and handed her the .38 . I told her not to open the door to ANYONE. I drove down the road to Fountain Firearms. I remember the roads were almost deserted. I got the the gun store and there were about 5 others in there buying ammo just like me. I bought equal amounts of boxes for all my guns, I then went to the grocery store and bought food and water, then came home. Then the reports of "dirty bombs" and "gas attacks" were going on all day. I remember I had turned the Expedition around in the driveway to face the street for a quick "getaway". I don't know where we were gonna "getaway" to ? But, we were ready.

[2fatcats]

I'm curious where you were, because I'm curious what Houston was like that day<<'DJ V Lawrence'

I was on I-10 inbound from Katy going to my first stop of the day when my roomate called and said two planes had hit the World Trade Center. I immediately thought it was not a random thing. Upon reaching my first stop, the tv was on in their office and you could see the burning buildings. Everyone was milling around and getting ready to return home. Back in my truck shortly after, I had the radio on and heard about the Pentagon. That's when I suddenly felt like we were under attack and I wondered if something was going to happen here also. I was headed downtown at that point. After my second stop, my office called and said things were shutting down and to head home. Most people who had made it to work were leaving anyway. I think most people got home and kept close to their tv sets the rest of the day. It was something we could not comprehend happening to us on such a grand scale. Everything just shut down, people didn't go into work, the planes were grounded and there was more than a little aprehension going around.

As a side note, after 9/11 there was a huge upturn in security particularly in all the downtown buildings, but after about six months this came to a halt in 95 percent of them. While all that security makes my job harder, having to be in and out of these places all day, I still advocate it and was sorry to see it lapse in a way. Complacency after all, is our worst enemy.

[lockmat]

Freshman year of college. Was in California, so I woke up to my roommate asking me, "Did you hear what happened?" Duh, I was sleeping, no. He told me one of the WTT had been hit by something. We tried getting online, but every single webpage in the world was so overloaded that we couldn't even get on espn.com or anything.

So I got dressed and went to class, stopped by the weight room where there was a tv and found a woman crying. And that's when I realized that this was serious.

I then went to class where my prof talked to us a little about what was happening, and he then dismissed us.

I actually had to take an exam a couple hours later, and the rest of the day was spent watching tv.

[jmancuso]

late for work (as always) and was on westheimer headed to work and was listening to 96.5 (the morning DJ's before roula and ryan came about) talking about an accident with 1WTC, called my mother to turn TV on and a few minutes later, the second plane hit.

[Howard]

My 911 Story

I was at work enjoying another beautiful day in Orlando, Fl. The year before I was promoted to Aviation Fuel Manager for our Subsidiary and moved from Miami to Orlando. I purchased jet fuel for the companies chain of FBO's (Airport gas stations) and provided inventory management and flight schedueling. I had it made... Great pay, Big 15th floor office overlooking the city, New house, New car and looking forward to getting married. My girlfriend called me and said a plane flew into the Twin Towers. I thought it was a flight error but then over the city? Must be a small plane. I turned on the radio to hear about the second flight into the tower then I knew something was wrong. As the day unfolded it was a somber evening. On the way home I bought an American flag from Home Depot and flew it from my window until I got to the house then put it up outside.

4 months later I walked into the office and noticed that no one was in. I was early as usual but someone was always there before me. The company president comes in a few minutes later and asks me to come to his office. He says things arent going well and he has to let some people go. One being myself... He gives me a cardbord box and says I need you out in an hour.

I packed my things and went home and sat at the foot of my bed thinking to myself what just happened. With my small window of expertise I couldnt get a job. I was getting $250 a week for unemployment. I tried to go back to the parent company and they saw it as a chance to let all the higher paying employees go and hire new ones at a lower salary and blame it on 911 (my opinion). I nearly lost the house, my credit went from the 700s to mid 500s, my girlfriend left me. I rented the house out as it was the only way I could keep it and moved in with some friends back in Miami. I worked as a Personal Trainer with a new company that was hiring. Long hours low pay and hustling sales all day sucked.

About 8 months later I saw fuel trucks being driven from Kuwait to Bagdad and started looking for companies doing fuel overseas (I wasnt interested in driving though). I found a few and they wanted me right away as a Fuel Systems Operator (Under my expertise but a good paying job). Long story long, I have been in Afghanistan ever since. Looking forward to coming home and starting a business 2008.

God Bless Our Troops!

[icanluv2]

My 911 Story

I was at work enjoying another beautiful day in Orlando, Fl. The year before I was promoted to Aviation Fuel Manager for our Subsidiary and moved from Miami to Orlando. I purchased jet fuel for the companies chain of FBO's (Airport gas stations) and provided inventory management and flight schedueling. I had it made... Great pay, Big 15th floor office overlooking the city, New house, New car and looking forward to getting married. My girlfriend called me and said a plane flew into the Twin Towers. I thought it was a flight error but then over the city? Must be a small plane. I turned on the radio to hear about the second flight into the tower then I knew something was wrong. As the day unfolded it was a somber evening. On the way home I bought an American flag from Home Depot and flew it from my window until I got to the house then put it up outside.

4 months later I walked into the office and noticed that no one was in. I was early as usual but someone was always there before me. The company president comes in a few minutes later and asks me to come to his office. He says things arent going well and he has to let some people go. One being myself... He gives me a cardbord box and says I need you out in an hour.

I packed my things and went home and sat at the foot of my bed thinking to myself what just happened. With my small window of expertise I couldnt get a job. I was getting $250 a week for unemployment. I tried to go back to the parent company and they saw it as a chance to let all the higher paying employees go and hire new ones at a lower salary and blame it on 911 (my opinion). I nearly lost the house, my credit went from the 700s to mid 500s, my girlfriend left me. I rented the house out as it was the only way I could keep it and moved in with some friends back in Miami. I worked as a Personal Trainer with a new company that was hiring. Long hours low pay and hustling sales all day sucked.

About 8 months later I saw fuel trucks being driven from Kuwait to Bagdad and started looking for companies doing fuel overseas (I wasnt interested in driving though). I found a few and they wanted me right away as a Fuel Systems Operator (Under my expertise but a good paying job). Long story long, I have been in Afghanistan ever since. Looking forward to coming home and starting a business 2008.

God Bless Our Troops!

It was nice to hear a happy ending to your story. I was driving to work and listening to KLOL(Outlaw Dave ? filling in for Stevens and Pruett i believe) when he mentioned about a plane hitting the WTC building. He mentioned an accident. When i got into the office, i went to cnn.com since we didn't have a tv. As i was watching it live, the 2nd plane hit. I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought maybe the website showed a replay of the 1st plane. Sure enough, it was a 2nd plane. The weather was beautiful, so i knew it had to be an attack. Our company was on high alert. Really awful day.

[editor]

I saw the first plane hit when I was at work. I was driving down Allen Parkway into downtown when the second one hit. Heard about it on the radio. By the time I got home the Pentagon had been hit and I woke my wife up and told her, "We're under attack!" and flipped on CNN.

Because of the nature of my job at the time no one in my office had anything to do for three days. But we still couldn't function. We all just sat around and when we tried to do even the most basic tasks they turned out terribly screwed up.

Interesting that you should mention about the quiet. That was the thing that struck me, too. When I lived at Dakota Lofts I spent a lot of time on the roof. September 11th and 12th were the quietest days I've ever heard in my life. You don't realize that there is always a little background noise from jets, but it's there. On those two days it wasn't. No traffic on I-10 or 59. Nothing in the air. Dead silence in the middle of the city. Creepy in a Planet of the Apes kind of way.

[Chris]

I remember I was also in the fifth grade at Lemm Elementary School in north Klein ISD and another teacher next door came in our room and told my teacher something off to the side so we couldn't hear. She then left and he told us what had happened. From that point on we had several questions and many students were getting picked up from school early that day.

[JLWM8609]

I was in the 9th grade at that time. It's funny that you can remember small things on days as big as that one was. It was a beautiful day here in Houston, it was just about clear. I was getting ready for school, and as usual, I had one of those morning shows on in the background. All of sudden, they came on with "Breaking News". I thought it was odd that there would be "Breaking News" on a national show, I knew something big had to have happened. They then announced an airplane had crashed into one of the WTC towers. I at first thought it was just a freak accident. They never said it was jetliner, people said it was a small plane. I remembered reading long ago that the towers could withstand a crash from a Boeing 707, so I resumed getting ready, packed up the Subway sandwich I bought the night before for lunch and walked into my room to get my wallet. The TV was on in there too, I looked up at the screen just in time to see the 2nd plane hit. That's when I heard my mom watching in the other room while waiting for me say "that wasn't an accident!" So we got into the car and drove over to the school which is about 2 miles away from here. On the way there, she said "a terrorist like Bin Laden is probably the one behind all of this." She dropped me off about 8:30am. I went to homeroom and asked some folks if they knew what happened, some did, some didn't. We went to first period and the teacher came in and said "I don't know if any of y'all know, but some planes crashed in New York killing a bunch of people. This is really going to affect our economy." They took us into another classroom to watch TV. I think by that time both towers had collapsed. All I saw was the dust rising from lower Manhattan. I starting feeling sick to my stomach, a mixture of fear and sadness. I was in a car accident the previous week, my uncle was in the hospital dying at the time, and now this. It was much to bear. So I told the teacher I was going to the office to call my mom to take me home. I walked down the hall and passed a girl crying. I got to the office and right as I picked up the receiver, my mom walked in. Some of the office workers were like "Wow! They've got ESP!" On the way home, she told me that the Pentagon had been hit. We turned on 102.1FM, The Tom Joyner Show had been interrupted by the news. When I got home, I found out about the plane crash in PA.

My dad is an attorney, and was in Lake Charles in court. They cancelled the trial and he came back to town. I remember because Air Force 1 left FL and went to Shreveport.

I remember in the next few days the oddness of not seein or hearing any aircraft flying. My cousins had to come from Ohio via bus to be with their dying father.

I also thought the news would never stop replaying the crashes 24/7.

But, it's 2007 now, that memory still stands out. I pray something like that never happens again. For a short time in the US, it seemed as if there were no religous, racial, or other differences between people, we all came together because we all realized how precious life is. I also remember church being packed on the sunday right after, people looking for answers I guess. The backsliders went back to their old ways the sunday after that one though.